


A Birth in Urithiru

by AKABess



Category: Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Childbirth, Don't think there's any spoilers, One Shot, Post-Oathbringer, Syl is a curious preschooler, not that it really comes up or matters except for one line at the very end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 00:09:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14123853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AKABess/pseuds/AKABess
Summary: A young woman unexpectedly goes into labor in the middle of the Urithiru marketplace.  Kal to the rescue!





	A Birth in Urithiru

Terrified and pained screams echoed through the marketplace. Kaladin dropped the boots he was looking at and lashed himself upward to get a better view. He saw a knot of activity two aisles over and quickly lashed himself in that direction. When he settled down mere moments later, he was confused by the sight in front of him. The shouts were coming from a circle of people in front of him, but it seemed too small for it to be a fight. The crowd wasn't shifting the right way for a violent altercation. He shouldered his way through the press of bodies, to find a woman crouched alone in the center of the circle. She was bellowing like a wounded chull.

 

He stared dumbly at the situation for a moment. 

 

She was a very young woman, maybe 16 years old. Her eyes were scrunched closed, dark hair knotted into a tight utilitarian braid slung over her shoulder. Sweat sheened her face as she crouched and groaned gently through heavy breaths. Her clothing was the hard wearing shirt and skirt of the working class. Her eyes flew open and Kaladin could see that she was darkeyed. "Oh no, not again, I'm not ready," she moaned, before shouting a barrage of curses that would make a sailor blush. 

 

Understanding finally clicked into place for Kaladin when she clutched her belly, pausing only to moan through another breath and begin yelling once more. No one was stepping forward to help her, so he did. The crowd milled about, watching with unhelpful vouyeurism. The shopkeeper stood behind the woman wringing his hands helplessly moaning to himself about how she was going to ruin the bolts of fabric he was selling. 

 

He waited til her pains had abated and she was once again quiet, though she was still moaning. Kal knelt beside her and placed a gentle hand on her arm. "Do you need help, ma'am?"

 

Her eyes caught his and she started to speak, but then her gaze flickered up to his shash brand and her lips pressed tight. She shook her head curtly and pulled her arm from his touch. The next pain took her by surprise, distracted as she was by the strange face so plainly labeled, "Dangerous."

 

Kal breathed out in frustration. Would he ever stop feeling the effects of his time as a slave? With grim determination, he stood up and pointed to a random person in the crowd. "You, go fetch a surgeon. There's a clinic at the East end of the market." His eyes settled on the shopkeeper. "And you," he said, "are going to help me move these curtains to shield her. She doesn't need everyone gawking at her right now."

 

The shopkeep looked at him with wide eyes. Where the woman had only seen his brands, he took in Kaladin's Bridge 4 uniform, and the Captain's knots at his shoulder. "You need to take her somewhere else," he argued. "She's going to ruin my wares." The shopkeeper practically whined as he begged Kaladin to fix this.

 

Kaladin took a step forward and grasped the man's shirt to bring him close. "Her pains are coming fast and hard. She's having this baby NOW. HERE," he growled at the storming man. "And you are going to help me move these storming curtains so she can have some privacy." He released the man. "And it will probably protect at least some of your wares when her waters go."

 

The shopkeeper paled, but Kal's tone seemed to get the man moving, and they quickly moved the curtains suspended from poles to create a rough chamber.

 

Just as they were finishing, a plump lighteyed woman of low dahn shoved her way through the dispersing crowd.

 

"Move it, you bunch of Lookie-loos," she said firmly. "Let a woman work." She was dressed similarly to the laboring woman, a skirt of sturdy brownish fabric and a simple buttoned blouse with a high neck. She wore a glove on her safehand like a darkeyed woman, though her light eyes entitled her to a havah with buttoned safehand sleeve. A pragmatic and functional choice for someone who needed to work with both their hands. Her eyes were pale gold and her hair Alethi dark, and her skin was a bronzed tan. She looked up at Kaladin where he was standing protectively at the small opening that made a door into the small curtained room. "You the father?" she asked brusquely.

 

Kaladin started in surprise. "No!" he said quickly. "I was just nearby. I was trained as a surgeon-"

 

"Yes, well, thank you. You can go," the midwife interrupted, for that was what she obviously was, with her basket filled with linens and bottles of medicine. There was even a tiny pair of baby shoes tucked in there. She paused a second before heading in, taking in the spearman's uniform. "On second thought, maybe you should guard this door if you've got nothing better to do. Don't need any more gawkers. Fastest way to turn a birth sour, strangers getting in a woman's face." And with that, she went inside. 

 

Kaladin stood stunned at the abrupt orders and dismissal. But even though she had no authority over him, he did as asked and took up post before the entrance to the hastily created curtained room. The laboring woman quieted after a moment, and Kaladin could hear the midwife speaking to her in a low, encouraging voice. It was as if a switch had been pulled, and she went from gruff to comforting in an instant. He heard the rise of effort in the laboring woman's voice as she moaned, but the sound was no longer panicked and terrified. It was a lower, earthier, almost sensual tone now, almost like someone enjoying some particularly vigorous sex. Then the sounds faded and he waited, barely daring to breathe. Then the woman began moaning once more, and he could hear the midwife urging her on gently. 

 

Minutes passed with agonizing slowness. The rhythm of moans and effort laden vocalization continued, escalating in speed and intensity until the laboring woman was shouting again. But this time, she was shouting in effort, not pain. He could almost feel her pushing, and the encouraging voice of the midwife urged her ever on. He wanted to turn and see when he heard the midwife urging the woman to breathe and rest between pains, but he knew this was intensely private and his curiosity had no place there. 

 

Just as his resolve crumbled, Syl zoomed out of the chamber with her typical playful exuberance. "I always wondered how babies were born!" she said, resolving into a youthful figure in a knee length dress, standing in the air before Kaladin's face. Kal grunted in response, and she continued blithely on. "I can almost see the head!"

 

Kal sighed. Trust Syl to keep his actions proper by acting as improperly as possible. "Syl, give her some privacy. This is personal."

 

Syl cocked her head curiously. "Why is she in the market then? Shouldn't she be somewhere more private if she doesn't want anyone watching?"

 

"I doubt she expected to go into labor here," he said. "It usually happens at night, and only rarely as quickly as this seems to have gone."

 

"How could she not know? That baby is HUGE!" Syl changed shape to take the form of a plump baby with cheeks squashed together and Kal was immediately reminded of the only other birth he'd witnessed. He blanched slightly at the memory of his father telling him to watch closely, and the discomfort he felt watching something so... private. Kal looked away from Syl, and she changed back into a young woman walking down a set of invisible stairs to once again be in the center of Kal's vision. 

 

The voice of the midwife was excitedly encouraging now, and Syl's face practically lit up in excitement before she zoomed off as a ball of light back into the curtained chamber. Kal shook his head and settled back to guiltily eavesdrop.

 

Suddenly, the woman's groans were cut off by a relieved exhalation, audible only because of its abruptness. Kaladin held his breath, and a moment later, the piercing cry of a newborn split the air. Kaladin broke into a silly grin and looked over at the shopkeeper, who met Kal's eyes. His relieved smile did much to soften Kaladin's view of him and the way he'd acted when Kaladin first arrived on the scene.

 

It was some minutes of hushed noises and movement behind the screen before Kaladin felt a light touch on the back of his arm.

 

"Sir, could you fetch a palanquin please? It's time for the young mother to go home with her babe." The midwife had happy tears in her eyes, and a smile on her face. 

 

Kal didn't need any further direction. He sucked in stormlight and lashed himself upward to get above the marketplace, glancing down to see the woman cradling her babe in the middle of the improvised chamber. With a smile on his face, he lashed himself toward the stand where planquins and their bearers waited for hire to anyone with the spheres to do so. He returned after only a short while and helped load the young mother into the curtained conveyance.

 

As he turned away the young mother turned to him to say, "I'm sorry for how I treated you earlier, I-"

 

Kaladin laughed, a happy genuine sound. "No need to worry, ma'am. I get it all the time. These brands have never done me any favors, and I can't imagine how you felt seeing them. You didn't know me."

 

A grateful smile grew on the woman's face. "I know you now. You're the one they call Stormblessed. I never thought my baby would be born with a Radiant standing guard." She paused to gaze adoringly at the swaddled baby snuggled against her chest. "Thank you for helping me. No one else was even trying," she let out a small shudder at the thought of all the leering eyes, almost threatening in her time of intense vulnerability.

 

"You can call me Kaladin, and it was an honor to assist you" he said.

 

"I-" she began, but was cut off by the once again angry merchant. Apparently the joy of a successful birth had faded and his outrage seemed to have returned in full force.

 

"And who is going to clean up this mess? I'll lose a dozen broams from this debacle!"

 

The midwife leveled a cool gaze at the man from where she was loading her gear into the planquin. "My assistant will be by in a short time to clean up the very small mess." The midwife sniffed at the implication that she would leave a mess. "I've already handled most of it." She pointedly placed the basket now full of soiled linens into the planquin and turned to Kaladin, clearly dismissing the irate shopkeeper.

 

"Thank you for your help. It was you who set up the curtains?" He nodded, and she went on. "Good thinking, there. It's hard for a woman to unclench enough to birth a child when she's being stared at by strangers. Your quick thinking helped keep the child from distress, though I dare say she's strong enough she'd have been born shortly no matter what anyone did." She wore a small smile, and Kaladin couldn't help but imagine she truly enjoyed her work, initial brusqueness aside.

 

"I take it she wasn't expecting the child today?" Kaladin asked, in reference to the strange location of today's activities.

 

"No, but it's not uncommon for particularly young mothers to go suddenly," she said. 

 

Kal nodded, remembering his conversation with Syl earlier. The two were unusually young to be married. But that sort of thing was happening more and more as the desolation ramped up. 

 

The two paused awkwardly for a moment. "Well, thank you," the midwife said again.

 

Again, Kal nodded, and turned away to go see if the boots he'd been looking at earlier were still available.


End file.
